Building people

LYNNWOOD — Support is a word with many different meanings.

It could mean aid or it could mean strengthen, improve, encourage, reassure or enhance.

When it comes to the South Snohomish County Family Support Center, the definition depends on the individual or family they are working with at the time.

For the past 10 years, the non-profit center, which is a program of Lutheran Community Services Northwest, has built relationships with all different types of people around the Puget Sound area who have wanted different types of support. The Center celebrated its 10 year anniversary on June 11 and plans on celebrating its success for the rest of the year.

Some who have been “supported” by the Center have been down and out, lonely and have had no where else to turn. The Center helped these people help themselves.

“Rather than working for people we work with them,” said Claudia Dickinson, program manager for the Family Support Center. “We don’t fix people, they fix themselves.”

Many others who have been “supported” by the center weren’t “needy” at all, but maybe just wanted some information on a play group for their toddler or an anger management support group or wanted to attend a cooking class. Others have unknowingly run across the local support center when they attended one of its free annual community events, such as National Night Out in Lynnwood or the Multi-Cultural Fair.

Despite its 10 year success and variety of diverse programs, the South County Family Support Center isn’t well known.

“Some days I think we’re the best kept secret in South Snohomish County because so few people realize what we really do. And other days when staff hardly has the time to take a breath, I wonder how we could possibly do more,” Dickinson said.

There are still many people in the community who wouldn’t imagine coming to the Center because they don’t feel like they’re “in need,” said Pam Graham, program coordinator for the Family Support Center.

But the fact is, the center is for the average person—it isn’t about “fixing” people who are in “need” but instead “fostering” people.

The Center puts them to work for themselves through a networking system of professional volunteers in the community who donate their time to run workshops and support groups for free—to give their expertise to those who want more information about a subject. Or the center just simply has a lot of resource information, pamphlets and more for the average person. There is something for everyone at the South County Family Support Center.

Lynnwood resident Denise Lull, a new stay at home Mom, learned about the South County Family Support Center in a local baby newspaper.

At home all day with Hannah, then 7-months-old, while her husband Robert was working, she wanted to get out of the house and get Hannah around some other children her age.

“I had gone from working and having friendships to staying at home all day. I wanted to get more involved in the community and I grew up in Seattle so I was commuting to Seattle for this other play group and I thought ‘this is crazy,’” so she called the number she found for the South County Family Support Center.

About 10 months later, Lull is now not only still involved in the quickly growing and popular play group at the family Support Center “The Little BeBops” (building early bonds out of play and support) but she is also the parent coordinator for the group.

Edmonds resident, Elisabeth Buccino, also first found out about the Family Support Center because of its play groups. But in the five years Buccino has been involved with the Center she has done almost every job at the Center and has also been a member of the Center’s Advisory Council.

Buccino and her husband Michael have been “in need” at times she said.

Buccino took some of the jobs at the Center to make ends meet at home financially and also has benefited greatly, she said from some support groups and classes. The Buccino’s son, Benjamin, now 5, has been developing differently then most children, Buccino said. “He has had behavioral problems all along and he’s been in developmental preschool,” she said resources through the Center have helped her family greatly, not to mention the Center’s “Parents Night Out” another free program at the Center which helps parents have a night out when it is hard to afford a babysitter.

And now Buccino has just started a new support group at the Center for parents with children who have Asperger’s syndrome— a mild form of autism, she said.

“I wouldn’t feel like Edmonds was my home if it wasn’t for the Family Support Center they are the ones that made me feel like I had a home and a community,” Buccino said.